Duncan Chisholm: Live at Celtic Connections – review

The title does this album scant justice. Yes, Scottish fiddle player Duncan Chisholm was at Celtic Connections this year, but it was a very special event. Joined by five of Scotland's finest players and a string and brass ensemble, he gave the first performance of The Strathglass Suite, an ambitious instrumental work comprised of pieces from the three-album Strathglass Trilogy he has taken six years to make. Chisholm is best known for his role with folk-rockers Wolfstone and the Julie Fowlis band, but has emerged as a major solo artist with this epic tribute to the area of the Highlands where his family have lived for 700 years. This is cinematic music, with elegant, haunting airs matched against jaunty, rousing pieces, his delicate fiddle work joined by fiddle, bass, guitar and uilleann pipes.